Yes, that landlord adds very little if anything to the economy, especially since the money to do what he does is simply siphoned off of someone else's income.
You claim the renter adds even less? Where the fukk do you think the rent money comes from? The renter adds everything the entire economic contribution of their 9-5 job AND everything you're crediting the landlord for since the renter is the one actually paying for all the shyt the landlord does.
This is one of those "poor people are too stupid to own property" arguments.
Y'all ignore that for most of human history, EVERYONE outside of slaves, indentured servants, and feudal serfs owned their own fukking home. It was NORMAL to own your own home. Even dumbass rednecks and Appalachian hillbillies own their own home.
The whole idea that 1/2 of society would be incapable of figuring out how to own a home didn't come until rich people got so much wealth they could buy up literally all available land and then dictate the terms for how everyone else gets to live.
I don't know how someone can talk about "The American Way" and yet have these giant gaps in their historical awarenss.
The actual "American Way" has been for the wealthy to impoverish and foreclose upon poor people so that fewer and fewer people (especially Black folk) could own land over time and the wealthy control more and more of the total. The American Way is for capitalists to rig the system so they come further and further ahead and increase the debts of the poor
It's literally impossible, under the principles of the American banking system, for the majority of the poor to get out of debt. If you don't know that then you don't know how money is created. Our system requires that there ALWAYS be more money owed than money exists - that's a fundamental property of creating money via loans at interest. So a few individuals, over time, can get out of debt, but only if other people get more and more indebted.
Please educate yourself.
"The 11th Round": A Revealing Parable On Our Money System
The Case for Reparations